Suspect tried suicide before, authorities say

Military investigating death in brig at base

CAMP PENDLETON — The murder suspect who committed suicide Friday by choking himself with toilet paper in the Camp Pendleton brig had twice tried to end his life while in military custody, authorities said yesterday.

Military law-enforcement officials said they're investigating how Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Jonathan Campos finally succeeded in killing himself while under suicide watch in a cell that was monitored with closed-circuit video.

Campos' death has spurred Marine Corps Installations West and Camp Pendleton to conduct an internal investigation on the brig's procedures for suicidal detainees and prisoners, a Marine spokeswoman said yesterday.

The military had charged Campos with fatally shooting and burning Seaman August Provost of Houston, a fellow sailor also based at Camp Pendleton, on June 30. The killing gained national attention after Provost's family and gay-rights groups questioned whether the victim was targeted because of his sexual orientation.

Navy officials have consistently said they lack any evidence of a hate crime or gang-related violence. They instead accused Campos of going on a crime spree that included driving under the influence, stealing valuables and a pistol from a home and soliciting a civilian to kill another sailor.

Investigators said Campos used the stolen pistol to shoot Provost as he tried to enter the Assault Craft Unit 5 property on Camp Pendleton, where Provost was standing watch in a guard shack. They believe he was planning to set a landing craft on fire in retaliation for an upcoming disciplinary hearing.

Authorities took Campos into custody about two days after the killing, then announced 16 charges against him – including murder, arson, unlawful entry and wrongful possession of a firearm – on July 23.

Campos, 32, of Lancaster, was discovered unconscious in his cell Friday morning, Marine officials said. He was pronounced dead that afternoon.

The analysis of how Campos managed to commit suicide is being handled by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

It's unclear whether the Camp Pendleton brig staff correctly followed policies for dealing with suicidal prisoners. A Navy regulation mandates that such individuals “shall be placed in special quarters under continuous observation.”

Another section of the regulation says those prisoners need to be “physically checked every five minutes.” It also requires the monitoring to be annotated on an operational report.

According to a Navy news release issued last week, guards checked on Campos at 11:45 a.m. Friday and found him well. At 12:21 p.m., they discovered that he was “unresponsive on his cot.”

If accurate, it would mean that Campos might have gone 36 minutes between checks, seemingly in violation of the Navy's regulation for the handling of suicidal prisoners.

Yesterday, Navy spokesman Brian O'Rourke said the regulation doesn't specify what constitutes a physical check. He also said that according to the corrections manual, a physical check every five minutes constitutes continuous observation.

Maj. Kristen Lasica-Khaner, a spokeswoman at Camp Pendleton, said the brig's guard followed all suicide-watch protocols, including visually checking on Campos every five minutes and logging the information.

The 11:45 a.m. check included physical interaction as Campos set down his lunch tray and then laid down, Lasica-Khaner said. The 12:21 p.m. visit was the next time there was verbal interaction between the guard and Campos, with the guard trying to wake up the prisoner and determining that he was unresponsive, she added.

Navy and Marine officials didn't specify when, where or how Campos tried to kill himself on the two earlier occasions.

This is the first suicide at Camp Pendleton's brig in at least five years, base officials said.

Death by asphyxiation from toilet paper is rare but not unprecedented.

In a 2006 issue of The American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology, researchers presented the case of a 58-year-old schizophrenic man who died after ingesting a large amount of toilet paper.

Lt. Michael Stout, a spokesman for the state's Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in Otay Mesa, said prisoners on suicide watch there remain under visual supervision 24 hours a day.

At one time, Stout said, the prison used a closed-circuit TV monitoring system, but found that “one-on-one observation” was more effective.

“We have not had any inmate suicides in the 19 years I've been here,” he said.